Ruckus Wireless and Sky team up to boost Wi-Fi in busy areas

Ruckus Wireless and Sky have teamed up to create a new wireless access point solution. The two companies said the new solution would boost Wi-Fi connectivity in places such as coffee shops or bars, which are usually considered ‘footfall usage areas’.

The new service is available right now. It combines DSL links to the AP’s Ethernet ports, thus increasing Wi-Fi capacity in high density areas. The two companies also said one of the key benefits of the service is that it does not require a LAN switch, link bonding hardware or any particular network configuration. That cuts cost, removes the challenge of a ‘single point of failure’, and optimises total cost of ownership.

“We wanted a simple, scalable, robust and low cost way to add capacity to our hotspots. Line aggregation or fibre optic technologies are too costly to roll-out to 20,000+ sites. This technology allows us to just add the same again, perhaps many times if needed, very effectively increasing capacity at a fraction of the cost,” says Sami Susiaho, head of edge technologies at Sky.

“This product demonstrates our investment in industry innovation and comes at a time where access to Wi-Fi is becoming a utility – voice is moving to Wi-Fi, video traffic is increasing exponentially and the coming summer brings sporting events like International rugby, Test Cricket, Formula 1, the Olympics and the Euros. Evolutions like this keep us in a strong position to grow market share in a highly competitive marketplace.”